COVID-19: PDP demands PTF dissolution over alleged incompetence

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Wednesday demanded the immediate dissolution of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 over alleged incompetence.

President Muhammadu Buhari set up by the PTF in March last year in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

He extended the task force mandate in December last year.

But in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said the PTF has not demonstrated any capacity in handling the pandemic beyond the announcement of infections and associated fatalities.

The party urged President Buhari to immediately dissolve the task force and put in place a team of experts under the control of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to professionally tackle the pandemic.

The statement read: “More distressing is that the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 has not demonstrated any capacity beyond the mere announcement of figures of infected persons, deaths, recoveries, discharges, and issues of local protocols rather than engaging in epidemiology, researches and production of equipment, drugs, therapeutics and other medical palliatives that can help stave off the impact of the global pandemic.

READ ALSO: PTF calls for research into COVID-19

“On account of this, the PDP restates our demands for the dissolution of the PTF and in its place allow a convergence of experts in a special department under the purview of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) to professionally tackle the pandemic.”

PDP also claimed that the Federal Government has failed to demonstrate efficiency in handling the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

On the budgetary provisions for the pandemic, the statement added: “The PDP is shocked that the Buhari administration did not make any budgetary provision in the 2021 Appropriation Bill for the acquisition of essential therapeutics, including vaccines, even in the face of the heightened anxieties over the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in our nation.

“It is indeed the height of leadership failure that the Federal Government has not been able to take a decision on the type and quantity of vaccines expected as well as ancillary facilities and associated logistics.

“The PDP is however not surprised at such governance indolence and confusion as the current system under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch is plagued by endemic corruption, mediocrity, incompetence, and laissez-faire attitude to issues that have to do with the well-being of Nigerians.

“Our party rejects the use of the COVID-19 pandemic as a corruption drainpipe for All Progressives Congress leaders and their cronies in government circles.”

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